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12 Year Old Gets $6.5M for Gaming Company
Bayscribe writes "A Silicon Valley company co-founded by a 12-year-old has just raised $6.5 million in venture capital. PlaySpan, based in Santa Clara, Calif. says it offers game publishers a technology that lets users make payments and shop for other items. It calls itself the first "publisher-sponsored in-game commerce network." Arjun Mehta, a 6th grader, says on his Web site that he is passionate about software that can make the game experience more "rewarding," and that he started the company last year in his garage. He paid for it from earnings made from selling online game items he won."
i smell another dot com bubble bursting
From the article:
dupe or not - that kid has just got to be an insufferable, annoying little snot.
a bit like "doogie howser MD" only real, remember that?
Not only is this story almost certainly a dupe, it's also over 4 months old.
In other words, could someone check whether that company still exists?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The linkage in the article is incorrect. The linked article talks about a startup (Elementeo) founded by a 13 year old kid named Anshul Samar, and NOT about PlaySpan, supposedly founded by 12 year old named Arjun Mehta.
Sloppy.
Is it just me or the summary bears no relation to the article it links to. The article talks about this kid inventing a board game, not "a technology that lets users make payments and shop for other items".
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
The actual article is here.
Apparently the kid isn't an actual co-founder, nor the CEO. It's his father running everything, the kid is just a sensationalist marketing tool.
Really, I highly doubt these kids even know a tiny fraction about the technical aspects of what they're selling or how it's done. They'll get lots of money for sure, and also learn a whole lot along the way, but they're definitely not the brains or management behind the operation at the moment.
This one turned 13 before I got to the article.
I wonder if this is what my mom thought I could have been doing with my time when she kept yelling at me for wasting all my time touching myself when I was 12?
I'll have to ask her sometime.
thats right, I rarely use capitals. deal with it. but don't mistake my laziness for stupidity
Makes slightly more sense with the correct link..
http://venturebeat.com/2007/09/19/playspan-run-12-year-old-ceo-gets-65m-in-venture-capital/
Which is not to say that investing $6.5M in a company run by a 12yo makes much sense but stranger things have happened at sea.. or so they say.
Isn't this just micropayments? Seriously, this is why gaming is dying. Developers will send out a half finished game and then charge people to download the extra content (i.e. the stuff they couldn't fit in before the deadline).
Let's face it, in a couple of years you'll get a game, say, Tekken where the character only has one costume. You'll then have to download the additional 5 different costumes at $2 a go. They'll do the same with maps and you'll only be able to play online with people who have also bought that map...
Summation 2
It sounds like there's some speculation that the kid doesn't really have that much to do with the company at all. Except for being an effective way to generate press. Nobody pays much attention if some random guy gets a few million dollars for a gaming idea. But a 12-year old...that's news!
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
A comment says The story about 12 year old co-founder is a big oversell...I know because I broke the story on funding two days ago. The CEO Karl Mehta and Arjun's dad is the real guy behind it...arjun just came up with part of the idea for it, and is not really involved with the business per se. Arjun's mention on the site is a gimmick which will be rectified soon...the release doesn't mention him and for good reason. Venture beat is investigating it, turns out the it is a hoax. Father using his son to make millions.
The chinese gold farmers do this since years, isn't there already a patent for this business method?
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Has anyone drilled down to find out more info on the kid's background?
I have done a little, and no, it's not the kid in a vacuum making these
accomplishments. He's 12 years old and smart, not a super genius born with 142
man years of VC experience. That's not built into the genetic code or injected
in the pop tarts he eats. But his support network does have this VC experience.
You could have achieved similar things as a child, if:
- You lived in Silicon Valley
- Had a support network with VC pitching experience
- Had family with connections to above said group
- Had family that planned for your achievements
I've read gushing stories of young entrepreneurs that seem outlandish or super human
in accomplishment for their age. But, when I dive down into the details, more often than not, I find cases of ready made systems that will not let the child fail.
Stories of a young furniture magnate with 2 warehouses and a booming business, only to find that his father owns 12 warehouses as is accomplished in the furniture business. The media loves portraying these kids in a light of pure achievement with no mention of their contacts, support and guiding but that is dishonest reporting.
I guess it makes for a less interesting story when you see the looming shadow of a father pulling strings for the child like a puppet behind the curtain.
The child seems happy enough with the attention though.
Is investing in a US based company that is based around selling items in video games. To the best of my knowledge, all MMORPGs fall in to one of two categories relating to online sales of in game stuff:
1) They support it fully, and thus facilitate it themselves like, say, Linden Labs. As such there's very little market for a secondary company, the operators already take care of things and they can offer things nobody else can, like security of transactions.
2) They hate it and it is a banable offence. Blizzard would be a great example. They are always combating gold sellers in World of Warcraft. Here there's a market for a secondary company, as the primary does what they can to prevent it.
Ok but you'll notice that all the ones out there like IGE seem to be located in non-US locations (IGE is in Hong Kong). Why is that? Well because not only do companies like Blizzard hate it, they'll sue your ass over it. Even if they don't win (and there's a reasonable chance they would, given it is their service and thus their right to set terms on it) they can drag your company down with a lawsuit and injunction over it.
However, that's only a problem for companies located in the US, or other nation that Blizzard (or rather their parent Vevendi SA) has offices and with legal systems friendly to such lawsuits. So operating in China is pretty safe, you just aren't going to get anywhere legally.
Well this company is US based. Seems rather stupid. Either you are trying to market in games that will let you, but don't need your services, or you are trying to market in games that won't let you, and will probably sue you if you become a big enough problem. Gee, THAT'S a great business plan.
Should read: "12-year old takes credit for his father's entrepreneurship and garners headlines for his father's company, father rewards extra publicity with new ferrari which kid will subsequently wreck during driver's ed"
stuff |
I remember when this was all fields..... :)
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
I couldn't help but notice that Bayscribe's (the submitter) e-mail handle is VentureBeat. So I'm assuming he wrote the article that the writeup links to? If so, that needs to be more clear in the writeup. It's not enough that the e-mail address is a tell. He isn't submitting this article as a disinterested third party who finds it interesting; he most likely wants to drive traffic to his site.
Kind of explains a lot, actually.
How very Web 2.0 Bubble...
Well, there goes 5 minutes I'll never get back.
I know his father Karl Mehta. He hails from Bombay/India and is a known 'hack' in Silicon Valley devising all sorts of get-rich-quick schemes with his VC brother Miten Mehta (go google). This appears to be one of his yet-another pipedreams. His previous idea was Tradeits.com (www.tradeits.com) which didnt reach anywhere. More here: http://center.spoke.com/info/p2iETB/KarlMehta
Please don't waste a min of your time on this crap. Arjun, his son, has no clue about what's going on - his father is using him for the dramatic effect.
Fields? Huh. I remember when this was all molten rock and hadn't even finished cooling yet! Now you kids get off of my lawn!
My blog
Molten rock? Luxury! We used to have to bring our own interstellar dust in a bucket and hope that we could pile up enough to have it hold together under its own gravity!
P.P.S. I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
my kid would find a generous VC to suck money out of instead of always emptying my wallet.
Hope is the currency of fools
Something that is common on games programming websites (such as Gamedev) is someone with no industry experience, or even programming ability, wanting to make their own game - either assuming a company will pick it up, or wanting to start their own company.
They tell us how they have a great "idea" for a game. They want programmers to work for them; we ask what they will contribute, and it's "ideas". We tell them that it's like someone with no experience in car design saying they have a great idea for a car, and expecting a company to make it. Typically they want to make a complex game, and most popular of all, it's MMORPGs - so not only do you have the complexities of making a game, but also all the troubles of running a server.
Misleading articles such as this make me sad - promoting that ideas are important, and an idea is all it takes to get funding, and get into the business. No doubt this will encourage more people to post "I have great idea for a game, I wanna make a MMORPG".
I'm sure most of us had money-making ideas when we were 12. Some of us pulled it off when we were older, some of us didn't. But there's nothing special about ideas.